Yellow Man Solo Book

for Harp at Level 4

Yellow man is a sticky yellow honeycomb sweet made traditionally by the women of Ballycastle, County Antrim on the extreme north coast of Ireland for their great annual Lammas Fair Day.  It would be made in great slabs which are then broken up with hammers and packed into little paper bags for the children to eat.  It was a great treat!

This piece was inspired by the children’s song in praise of Yellow Man – its melody appears in the first bars.  Then it gets some of the frisky Harbison treatment.  The piece was first performed in a concert at the Manchester Arts Festival in about 1984 given by “Celtic Strings” – a first and regrettably the only concert of the 4 great friends: Janet with Patsy Seddon, Mary McMaster (Scotland) and Kristen Nogues (Brittany).